Category: Pickleball (Page 136 of 325)

Sunday, October 2, 2022 (Court Day #557)

Still out with a rolled ankle, my original planned partner René was able to get a friend of hers to fill in, Kristin “Kris” Kuppe, who lives mere minutes from Mitchell Park in Palo Alto, the location of the 2022 Bay Area Senior Games.

I drove up and met Kris in her driveway at 10:47 a.m. (And I do mean “met”. We’d never seen or talked other than by text in the last 48 hours!) Kris was very pleasant and I loaded my backpack, extra shoes, and chair into the back of her car. Kris is fairly tall for a woman at about 5’7″. Play was scheduled to start at noon, so after parking, we had plenty of time to get situated and warm up.

The courts seem to have been redone since I was there 4-5 years ago. It seems much more pickleball friendly. I think there weren’t permanent pickleball courts previously.

René had said she’d come to watch and hang out and she indeed appeared.

We found the registration tent to signed in. A very pleasant surprise, manning one of the computers, was none other than former Santa Cruz Pickleball Club webmaster and former site coordinator Dave Allenbaugh . . . wearing the exact same blue SCPC shirt as I was wearing! Dave got us signed in and arranged for us to get our free tournament T-shirts. Dave has been M.I.A. lately, he had a knee replaced and will be having the second one done in the not too distant future.

Dave also asked if I wanted to get update texts for the tournament. This was new to me. I said yes, and I gave him my mobile number.

Warm Ups

Kris and I found an empty court and did some dinking and drop shots and volleys. One never knows what to make of an unknown partner, but Kris did well, she’s a solid 3.5.

There was a team there that Kris knew, Miryam and David, and we did a warm up game with them. Kris and I took a quick and sizable lead. They started catching up. Since they were stacking, they got confused at one point and Miryam thought she was still serving though David had just served to Kris from that side. Given it was a warm up game, I wasn’t going to challenge her claim, as it made no difference to me. Though from then on, I knew the game wasn’t accurate or fair, so I took it even less seriously. They ended up “winning” the warm up game by a couple of points.

Waiting

We wandered back to the picnic tables where we had parked our chairs and waited for our first game. At 12:06 p.m., I got a text from the tournament system saying that our pool had started. Mike Hoxie called our category together near the registration tent and announced how things would work. By the time Kris and I realized it was happening and got there, we missed the start of it, but it was pretty routine. We’d all be playing to 15 in the round robin.

There was a question by one of the participants and Mike explained there was a last-minute partner change and that changed the number of teams in the age-group. I figured this might be us, but it took another minute to realize that Kris is in 55-59 bracket, not 50-54, so we were now playing in a different group than René and I would have originally played. Yep, it was us. There would be two pools, one with five teams and another with six.

It wasn’t until 12:47 did we get a text that it was time for our first game. I learned much later that Kris and I had the first bye, so that’s why we had waited so long.

Game 1

Our first game would be against Ginny and David Lee at Court #9. Kris confided that they are both new players. Kris and I took a quick and big lead. It was obvious that they were more in the 3.0 skill range.

About two-thirds through the game, I did something I shouldn’t do in a tournament, I hit a shot to David at the net crosscourt when Ginny was back and the obvious target. I was feeling bad for them. The shot was high enough for David to hit the ball at my partner’s feet and they got a point. After that, I was more “ruthless”. I reminded myself that you never know when a team will turn around and suddenly climb back into a game. We wrapped up the game 15-1.

After the game, I asked when they had started playing pickleball. Ginny said three months. I gave her some encouragement and let her know that I’ve been playing for years.

Game 2

After a very brief wait, at 1:13, our next game came up. Mike asked, “I’m not making the games too quick, am I? You have enough of a break?” I shrugged it off, told him it was fine. I collected the score sheet clipboard from his table and Kris and I headed to Court #12. After waiting for a bit, I went to Mike and he made an announcement over the loudspeaker asking for our opponents. Debbie You and Peter Zepponi promptly appeared a few minutes later.

Peter is tall and Debbie is short. Peter has powerful drives, but after facing Matt Smith for a year now, I’m used to those. That and Peter hit a few of them into the net. With the height differential between our opponents, Debbie was our general target.

This was another 15-1 win though Debbie and Peter were a bit more challenging than our first game.

Game 3

The alert for our next game came at 1:45 p.m. We would face Ruby Cawley (of Manteca) and Daniel Aumack (of San Jose). Like the first games, we rocketed to a fast start and were up 5-0 in pretty short order. But things got harder. Both teams scored 4 more points, bringing the score to 9-4. It was about then that I noticed that Daniel was left-handed. When I pointed this out to Kris, she hadn’t noticed yet. Boy, that’s something that I keep trying to remember as a pre-game checklist!

At this point, errors started kicking in. Kris, who had earlier said her serves aren’t special but she gets them all in, missed several. Daniel got the best of me in a net battle. Kris returned a few serves long. In a massive momentum shift, they scored 11 additional points to our mere 1. We found ourselves at the losing side of a 10-15 final score. Ouch.

That was one we let slip away. We were now 2-1 overall.

Game 4

At 2:16 p.m., we were supposed to play at Court #11 , directly across the divider from our previous game, but one of our opponents, Linda, asked Mike if we could play on a permanent court instead. Personally, I’d never do that, I just figure the TD is too busy to bother, but Mike granted her request. Another text came at 2:22 saying our court had been reassigned to Court #5.

Our opponents would be Linda Severet (of Antioch) and Glenn DeQuiroz (of Discover Bay, CA).

Linda and Glenn are nice people. Unassuming but very capable. Kris and I got clobbered. There were two shots that were high enough to slam but I was forcing the shot—we were already very behind—and slammed those two balls into our side of the net. So frustrating! And to demonstrate how badly I must have been playing in this game, Linda started targeting me.

We took a 15-2 loss. After the game, I told them that their playing style matched up well against ours, whatever that was. Linda said they knew going into the game that they needed to win or they’d be eliminated from the playoffs. I wasn’t even considering that. I just was taking one game at a time and let things fall where they may.

Maybe it was just a one-off, but in that game, there was no question which was the better team.

Waiting

Initially, we were waiting to see when our next game would be. But we discovered that we were in the pool with five teams instead of six, so we were done.

Talking to Daniel, who had been part of the team that came back from down 5-0 to beat us, said they had gone an undefeated 4-0 and that our game was the toughest that they faced. Nice to hear.

We waited to see if we would be in the playoffs or not. I had just taken it game by game and not paid attention to what the standings were. I figured 2-2 would be a longshot. After about 30 minutes Mike got up and announced the playoffs. Kris and I were not called and then he went on and read off names that included ours saying that our day was done. Alas, but not a huge surprise with our record today.

Results

The gold went to Ruby and Daniel—the team that came back from down 4-9 and beat us. (I feel we could have beat them.) The silver went to Linda and Glenn. (I feel like we couldn’t have beat them . . . at least not today.) A surprise, the bronze went to Maryam and David. Kris felt that—and I have agree—had the pools been different, we could have been the bronze medal team, but we had the gold and silver teams in our pool. “Luck of the draw” as they say. Or “unluck”. We ended up in the top half of the bracket, with a positive point differential. Some consolation, at least. That and having the gold medal team down 9-4, we just couldn’t finish them off.

Kris dropped me off at my car and I was home about an hour later at about 5:30 p.m.

UTPR Update

After being a legacy 3.5 player and having to earn my way back up to official 3.5 status, I’m officially back to 3.5 for my “2 Digit Skill Rating”. It’s only updated four times each year and the last update for 2022 happened yesterday:

The tournament today was unsanctioned, so it’ll have no effect on my Mixed Skill Level rating one way or the other.

I was disappointed that we didn’t medal today, but overall, we didn’t do badly all things considered. Onward!

Number of days on a court: 557
Number of total hours: 2,509

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Friday, September 30, 2022 (Court Day #556)

I left my house I realize that I had forgotten to send an business email that needed to be sent yesterday. So I stopped by work and took care of that then continued on my way to Brommer Street County Park play and arrived at 9:10 a.m. I took one of the last three parking spots. As is typical, all the courts are completely full and a number of people are waiting.

Play Time

I went through a variety of games today although none of them were with top-tier opponents. Maybe that was good, since I was not playing my best. I started out with a reasonable amount of energy but after an hour or so I started feeling tired. Maybe it was a combination of playing last night and I didn’t eat breakfast either—though skipping breakfast is typical for me.

I hit some of my serves out, I hit a number of “out balls”, some of my drop shots landed in the net . . . it was just not on par.

Wai was playing pretty well today. He has a pretty deceptive delivery of the ball. At times he makes it look as if he’s going one direction and sends the ball a different direction—he is very slippery!

In a game against Wai and Joe C., Wai angled a dink shot tight crosscourt to my right. I sprinted to the net, barely got to the ball and had to take it around the post, which I did. And I hit the ball into Joe’s torso. Joe was pretty amused. I’d never hit a player in the torso with an ATP before.

12:17 p.m. and it was time to go.

Aches and Pains

My left hip has been bugging me the last week. A few days ago, reaching out with my left leg getting out of my car significantly hurt—as it did while really reaching for a shot today. The outside of my right knee was briefly flaring up too. And as I mentioned yesterday, the inside of my right wrist is sore.

Partner Disaster

René texted me at 6:10 p.m. with some bad news. She was out running and rolled her ankle! The PT was saying two weeks of rest . … not conducive to our tournament in less than 48 hours. René did say she has a friend named Kris Kuppe who might be able to take her place . . . but I’ve never met Kris. Tournaments are ruthless. It’s like blood in the water. If Kris is a weaker player, she will get attacked and I won’t see the ball much. (But, heck, if I have a bad day that could be me!)

Compliment

My wife Kristen, son Nicholas, and I opted to visit an art opening hosted by a friend, Paul, on the lower westside. While there, we bumped into my wife’s co-worker/friend Lisa and her husband Ethan. Kristen had mentioned to me recently that Ethan’s friend had bought him some pickleball gear. Of course, pickleball came up in tonight’s conversation. While I was chatting with Ethan about pickleball and his work, Marvin from the Skypark courts appeared. I hadn’t seen Marvin for a few months, but we immediately recognized each other and waved. A couple minutes later he came over and told Ethan, “Andrew is the best instructor, if you can get him him to teach you, do it!” Sounds like I made a good impression with Marvin with my informal tips when we played together in Scotts Valley.

Partner Disaster Revisited

René texted later and said Kris would be able to play. Then she texted again later and said she might recover well enough to play on Sunday . . . though I suspect that is a long shot. I emailed Mike Hoxie, the tournament director, and he said he’d need to know who my partner will be by 6 p.m. tomorrow at the latest.

Can Two 4.5 Players Take Down a Single Pro?

I thought this video was impressive. I remember a game of just me taking on two brand new players and I had to hold back to keep rallies from ending too quickly. That’s one thing. Taking on two advanced players while covering your side of the net by yourself is an entirely different thing! I’d expect the pro to unquestionably lose. Watch the video.

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Saturday, October 1, 2022 (No Play)

René called me and said her ankle is still bad and the tournament is out. She said Kris would play—or not—play as my partner as needed. I opted to go ahead and play. The plan is to meet Kris at her house in Palo Alto and car pool the mile or two to the courts. It’s easier to meet someone you don’t know somewhere other than a venue with hundreds of random people!

Funny Local Video

Gary S. (Terry’s husband) made a video and asked Ted B. to share it and I was on Ted’s email list:

And someone shared this cartoon online today…

Given the paragraph I wrote above yesterday about aches and pains, too apropos!

Number of days on a court: 556
Number of total hours: 2,507

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Thursday, September 29, 2022 (Court Day #555)

Yesterday, I mentioned NBA basketball player LeBron James buying a Major League Pickleball team. Today, I had two non-player co-workers mention it to me since they had seen it in the news. It’s crazy how much publicity pickleball is getting.

Skypark

I got the Skypark at about 6:50 p.m., and parked back alongside the courts since the paved parking lot was full. All the nets were set up and in use. It was a busy night.

Tonight, it was the mix of mostly medium skill games. There weren’t really any games are truly challenging.

There was a man named Tim who was there—not Casey’s dad Tim—but a man who plays tennis primarily in the evenings and then moves over and plays pickleball after the tennis players leave. He and I played against Paul and his friend Matt and beat them tonight. Matt was not playing as best, but I was playing decently. Tim and I beat them by by fairly significant margin. Tim said it was his first time beating them and that I had played well.

So, Tim graduated from San Lorenzo Valley High School two years before I graduated from Harbor High School. Tim said he later went and coached Harbor’s tennis team for a period of time.

Top Tennis -> Entry Level Pickleball

There was a young fellow, Kourosh, was playing tennis who knew Tim and played tennis with him tonight. Tim said Kourosh was the #1 tennis player in the SCCAL (Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League) while at Aptos High School five years ago. I played with Kourosh as my partner against Paul and Matt. It was Kourosh’s second-ever pickleball game. Kourosh kept trying to topspin drive the ball and it kept ending up in the net. But Kourosh had crazy good angled shots and could cover a lot of the court…sometimes too much as he’d cross over to my side and poach a shot and mess it up. Still, he played well enough that we won. Afterward, Matt said he wasn’t feeling that good and stopped playing for the night. That explained his subpar performance.

Wrist Pain

While in a game with Minori against David and Sharyl’s son Kevin (whom I met tonight for the first time) I experienced noticeable pain on the inside of my right wrist on a backhand shot. This past week I’ve been noticing pain on the inside of my wrist while playing my practice chanter (a practice instrument for playing bagpipes). This is worrisome. The lights clicked off at 9:30 in the midst of this game.

Blast from the Past

A bunch of us were still there and hung out and shared snacks for a good 45 minutes.

By far, the most memorable event of the evening was finding out that one of the pickleball players there tonight, Rachel, was in my graduating class at Harbor High School. She’s said she’s been playing pickleball for about three months. She comes from a very strong tennis background; she was the #1 tennis player on the tennis team back in high school, and continues to play even now. That’s pretty impressive.

We chatted about classmates and teachers and caught up a bit. It was a fun surprise!

Number of days on a court: 555
Number of total hours: 2,504

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.